Time Out says

4 out of 5 stars

Details

Time Out says

4 out of 5 stars

Robed in the shadows of Shakespeare's sorcerers, Milton's demons and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the dark aspects of romanticism invade the Musée d’Orsay this spring. The genre has given us Goya’s war paintings, Géricault’s shipwrecks and the phantom creatures of Füssli, all drawing on the heritage of British and German literature of the 18th and 19th centuries. The works enliven the very idea of ‘romanticism’ by going beyond the stereotype of the melancholy dreamer: here, it’s nightmares and the more obscure parts of human nature that count. From the oppressive landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich to the tortured shadows of expressionist German cinema, this exhibition explores the macabre and tormented in art history through 200 works that encompass German romanticism, industrial revolution and surreal fantasies.